Problem with Migration between 2 current Macs

[surfer92]

Hello all,

I had an iMac at home before I went to college and now that I graduated, I now have it again. Before I started school, I transferred everything via firewire from my iMac to my Macbook Pro. Now that I have both again, I would like to transfer everything (music, files, apps) I've accumulated from school on my laptop, to my iMac. I've ran the Migration Assistant and when I get to the screen where it prompts me to choose what I would like to transfer, there is only about 150KB of data (no applications or files). I tried creating a fresh account on the iMac but it did the same thing when I ran the program.

Could this be happening becasue I already did the transfer a couple years ago? If so, are there any other (efficient) ways to transfer data? I really care about the music and important files like resume etc.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nick

 

[Altemose]

Hello all,

I had an iMac at home before I went to college and now that I graduated, I now have it again. Before I started school, I transferred everything via firewire from my iMac to my Macbook Pro. Now that I have both again, I would like to transfer everything (music, files, apps) I've accumulated from school on my laptop, to my iMac. I've ran the Migration Assistant and when I get to the screen where it prompts me to choose what I would like to transfer, there is only about 150KB of data (no applications or files). I tried creating a fresh account on the iMac but it did the same thing when I ran the program.

Could this be happening becasue I already did the transfer a couple years ago? If so, are there any other (efficient) ways to transfer data? I really care about the music and important files like resume etc.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nick

Do a manual transfer?

 

[surfer92]

Do a manual transfer?

I did that with some of my music on a flash drive. It just wasn't as seamless (the playlist wasn't in the order that I had on my laptop), but I suppose it's fine.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hello all,

I had an iMac at home before I went to college and now that I graduated, I now have it again. Before I started school, I transferred everything via firewire from my iMac to my Macbook Pro. Now that I have both again, I would like to transfer everything (music, files, apps) I've accumulated from school on my laptop, to my iMac. I've ran the Migration Assistant and when I get to the screen where it prompts me to choose what I would like to transfer, there is only about 150KB of data (no applications or files). I tried creating a fresh account on the iMac but it did the same thing when I ran the program.

Could this be happening becasue I already did the transfer a couple years ago? If so, are there any other (efficient) ways to transfer data? I really care about the music and important files like resume etc.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Nick

What account(s) do you have on the iMac? If you have a surfer92 account on the Macbook then try to use Migration Assistant to import to the iMac and it already has a surfer92 account, you will have a big mess.

Backup both machines before you try this. I assume here there is nothing on the iMac you want and all data is on the Macbook?

On the iMac create a new, temp admin account and login to that account. From that account go into System Prefs Users & Groups and remove the other account so all you have left is the temp account. Now from within the temp account run Migration Assistant and import everything from the Macbook.

Once that is done reboot into your real (now imported) account on the iMac and after making sure everything looks okay, go in and delete the temp account.

 

[surfer92]

What account(s) do you have on the iMac? If you have a surfer92 account on the Macbook then try to use Migration Assistant to import to the iMac and it already has a surfer92 account, you will have a big mess.

Backup both machines before you try this. I assume here there is nothing on the iMac you want and all data is on the Macbook?

On the iMac create a new, temp admin account and login to that account. From that account go into System Prefs Users & Groups and remove the other account so all you have left is the temp account. Now from within the temp account run Migration Assistant and import everything from the Macbook.

Once that is done reboot into your real (now imported) account on the iMac and after making sure everything looks okay, go in and delete the temp account.

They are both the same name...I think I have that big mess haha

In 2010, the MBP was the same exact desktop as the iMac...Now I just want the same MBP desktop on the iMac.

Do I need an external HDD to backup with time machine? Sorry for the probably stupid question...I'm just hesitant to delete this current account on the iMac and then have it not work. Thanks for your help.

 

[Weaselboy]

They are both the same name...I think I have that big mess haha

In 2010, the MBP was the same exact desktop as the iMac...Now I just want the same MBP desktop on the iMac.

Do I need an external HDD to backup with time machine? Sorry for the probably stupid question...I'm just hesitant to delete this current account on the iMac and then have it not work. Thanks for your help.

Yes... just get whatever USB3 external drive is available or on sale. I like the WD My Passport drives, but any will work. Make two partitions on the drive then backup both Macs before you do this so if things go badly you don't lose anything.

 

[surfer92]

Yes... just get whatever USB3 external drive is available or on sale. I like the WD My Passport drives, but any will work. Make two partitions on the drive then backup both Macs before you do this so if things go badly you don't lose anything.

Thanks for your help. I didn't back anything up but went ahead and followed your guidelines. Everything turned out perfectly- I did have to use the "old" method of migration- the restarting and holding down "T", but everything's good.

Thanks again!

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for your help. I didn't back anything up but went ahead and followed your guidelines. Everything turned out perfectly- I did have to use the "old" method of migration- the restarting and holding down "T", but everything's good.

Thanks again!

Oh good. Glad that worked out.